


Welcome to the Real World

by SpraceJunkie



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, but nothing permanent or really explicit, no graphic violence but the premise of this is a massive VR world, so there's mentions of killing/dying, this started as a shitpost how did it get this far?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpraceJunkie/pseuds/SpraceJunkie
Summary: Racetrack dei Lupi is famous. Tony Higgins is not.I supposed inspired by several things but the premise is that this is in the future, there's a massive VR world called OmniNet that Race lives in more than the real world, and Spot Conlon is an old school romantic.





	Welcome to the Real World

OmniNet was an easy place to get lost in.

It was an easy place to find somebody in, and an easier place to lose somebody in.

It was a place to make yourself who you wanted without limitations, a place where you could step through a doorway and move from medieval Europe to late two-thousands Australia, a place where nothing was real but everything was _vibrant_.

OmniNet was a place where nobody knew who you really were, even if your avatar was infamous.

That was the best part of it all.

OmniNet let anyone be anyone, and nobody could be the wiser.

Antonio Higgins was a name nobody knew. He was the class clown, middle of the pack, not too good or too bad at anything.

Racetrack dei Lupi was a name everyone knew. Racetrack dei Lupi was a champion of most areas of OmniNet.

Race was as tall as Tony was short, as strong as he was weak, as tough as he was wimpy. Race won the fights he picked, and he didn’t have to pick them carefully, because he’d been playing so long he was better than everyone.

Race was what Tony would be if he could be anyone, and Racetrack dei Lupi was ideal.

He didn’t lose, especially to a short, angry, possible gnome who’s join date was two months ago.

Even if the short, angry, possible gnome was really good at fighting and especially if the short, angry possible gnome was trying to attack Race in Race’s own home.

“Fuck you.” Race said, shooting a laser into the other player’s shoulder, not penetrating the armor.

“Right back atcha, wolf.” The guy grinned, sidestepping the next punch Race threw.

“Get out of my house!”

“Nah.” His grin widened, stabbing forward with the sword in his hand. “You got some nice stuff in here.”

“Yeah. My stuff.” Race finally landed a good hit, right in between the two pieces of armor protecting the guys neck, effectively decapitating him.

_Racetrack dei Lupi (678) has defeated Spot Conlon (669) in **hand to hand** combat._

The message flashed up in the air in front of Tony’s avatar, a thing to see and not touch.

Spot Conlon. Level 669.

That’s who had broken into his virtual house and attempted to kill his virtual self.

Level 669. That was almost definitely top 100. No, not almost, 669 was defintely top 100 because Race’s friend Alex was top 75 and they were only level 651. Race was top three, only two people were better than him in the entire network, and both of them only barely. He’d faced off against most of the top 100 before, especially any of the ones who could program or hack, which Spot Conlon obviously could, considering he’d made it not only into Race’s home server but inside his actual house, which had a second firewall around it.

So how on Earth had Race never heard of Spot Conlon, level 669? He frowned, pulling up his firewall code, checking for whatever loophole had allowed the intruder inside. There weren’t any obvious ones, the only way inside should have been his passcode, but there were always ways to hack a firewall, actually hack them.

Spot Conlon was good. Really good.

Tony pulled off his goggles and exited OmniNet, pulling up the regular old internet to do a search.

Surely a player in the top 100 would have something out there somewhere.

Over the next couple weeks, Tony collected information about Spot Conlon wherever he could find it. Here was his profile, revealing he joined shortly after the Net went online, a little bit after Tony had. There a blog post about him hacking into somewhere he didn’t belong, here one about him entering a contest and cleansweeping the entire thing.

Not a lot, but enough to be able to tell he was a good player.

“Sup wolfy?” Usually when he logged in he had to wait a few seconds for his house to render. This time he was greeted by Spot Conlon sitting on his couch. “Firewall updates.” Spot grinned. “Not your best work.”

“Get out of my house!”

“No.” He wasn’t wearing armor or carrying any weapons, so Race didn’t draw his own. “I’m just relaxing. Nobody else is ever in here. You’re usually not. So why can’t I enjoy it?”

“Because it’s my house! I built it!” Spot scoffed.

“Please. Personal firewalls like that, this entire house probably took you two hours to program. It’s all basic stuff. And you didn’t buy any of it, cause I can’t sell any of it. You made it all. Except the flowers. Those were a gift from...Cassandra X X X.” Spot picked up a boquet of flowers from the table that Race hadn’t noticed yet. “Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, definitely, I’m dating a creep who sends me virtual flowers once a day who I haven’t even met.” Race still snatched the flowers away from Spot.

“A top three player being stalked. Scandalous.” Spot flipped himself so he was upside down, his head hanging down and his feet against the wall.

“Stop it.”

“Dirt is fake here. I’m just getting comfy.”

“Literally fuck off.”

“Aw, I’m just messing with you.” Spot blinked and Race saw lines of code flash beneath the avatar’s eyes and a new bouquet of flowers popped up on the table. “There. See? Friends?” He grinned and blinked again, and phased out of existence. Race picked up the flowers and opened their code. It was a simple representation of a bouquet of red roses, but tucked inside was a caveat.

_if (smelled) {_  
begin iocane program  
} 

Race dropped them back on the table, shaking his head. The iocane program was one that had turned up a few months ago. It worked just like the fictional poison it was named after. It was silent and invisible, no notification, and when it was set off by smelling, like in the flowers, or tasting, it didn’t send any sensory information to the avatar, either. It worked like a virus, only faster, and killed whoever activated it, giving the victory point to the person who’d set it.

Race pulled up the history of his house quickly, copying Spot’s IP address from his edit to the house’s code and put into the messaging program.

_Seriously, iocane?_

_gotta pay you back for the decapitation somehow. i take it you didn’t fall for it?_

_Why would I smell your flowers without checking the code first?_

_fair enough. how bout a rematch then? chessick arena tomorrow_

_Time?_

_six o clock eastern. you’ll recognize the name and the passcode will be roses_

Race saw Spot go offline, and he closed the chat.

This guy was annoying.

Chessick arena was a PVP arena where the players made a mini server in the bigger one to fight each other. Normally it was for duels, which Race had always found stupid. Duels were almost always a way for players who thought they were better than they were to try and show off. He’d never been a dueler. Games and naturally occuring fights were more fun, and being taken off guard and still winning showed more skill than standing across an arena and shooting somebody from a distance.

When he checked the boards at Chessick, there were a few that seemed like Spot could have made them.

Asshole’s Arena.

Checkered Ducks. He wasn’t sure why that reminded him of Spot, but it did.

He wasn’t sure which one it was, until he saw “Lupi Land” and knew it had to be Spot making fun of his last name. He entered the password and was whirled into the arena.

Every other time he’d been in Chessick, it had been a simple arena. Usually dirt or hard rubber floors, spotlessly clean, open space, artificial barricades for cover.

This one was designed after a forest, soft moss covering the ground, huge trees growing out of the floor, a ceiling barely visible high above his head.

“Holy shit.” A massive white wolf appeared at his side, armor covering its head.

“Welcome, Racetrack dei Lupi, to Lupi Land, a forest of wolves and magic.” A smooth female AI voice rang out. “Your challenger is Spot Conlon. You have access to any spells you know already as well as the basic spell books that may be found in the inventory of the server. If you so choose, you may engage in hand to hand combat. The only weapons available to you are those currently found in your personal inventory. The server will activate in thirty seconds. Good luck, and have fun!”

Race glanced around the arena again, scanning for Spot, before pulling up the server inventory and opening the basic spell book provided.

It was full of things he already knew, so he closed it, instead opening his own inventory and equipping his armor and a few weapons.

When he closed his inventory, the arena was spinning around him, and he was dropped into a new clearing in the forest. Spot was across from him, grinning.

“Like the name, wofly?”

“Lovely.”

“And I know you loved my iocane program.” Race watched lines of code flow across Spot’s eyes, and he knew he was about to be hit with something. He hastily threw up a weak firewall, but only succeeded in dulling the effect of the virus Spot sent. It made his vision blur and his head spin. “I call this one acid. Nobody’s managed to recreate it yet, it’s all mine.”

“You made iocane?” Race hurriedly sent out his own program, and he saw Spot step back when he got hit.

“Sure.” His avatar flickered, and shifted into a face Race recognized.

“You’re Nimhe!” Now Race knew why he’d never seen Spot before, even though he was a top 100 player.

Displayed names were changeable, usernames were not. Nimhe was a well known player. He was a hacker, he was a programmer, and he was good.

Spot Conlon was his username, and nobody put the two together.

Spot’s normal avatar reappeared, short, white spots standing out against his dark skin, hair pulled into a puff on top of his head.

“When I want to be.” He shrugged, flexing his wrists and summoning a pair of twin knives.

“I’ve fought you before.”

“Nah. You’ve fought Nimhe. Me and him? Don’t have much in common.” Like a cat, Spot jumped up into a tree and swung over behind Race. “Nimhe doesn’t do-” He gestured between the two of them. “This.”

“What is this, exactly?” Race deflected one of the knives, stabbing up with a sword before switching to a gun.

“Friendliness. Flirting. Talking to people. He’s in and out, no attachments, no conversation.” Spot grinned as he landed a hit on Race’s shoulder, slowing his movement with that arm.

“You call this-” Race landed his own shot, backing up, hoping Spot would drop down. “Flirting? Friendliness?”

“I bought you flowers and built you a forest server based on your name.” Spot whistled and the wolf Race had seen when he’d first entered the server appeared. “Racetrack of the wolves. He’s friendly.” Race back against a tree, jumping up to grab a branch to pull himself up. “Iarann! Down!”

“Your pet?”

“I programmed him, sure.” The wolf crossed to the tree Spot was still in, leaning back against the trunk like they hadn’t been fighting a few moments before. He dropped down onto the wolf’s back. “He only exists in this server.” Spot’s knives were gone again, and Race dropped back to the ground, cautiously extending a hand to the wolf.

Without warning or being able to process what was happening, the wolf was on top of him, pinning him down, snarling. 

“Unfortunately, I have to go, and this arena can’t be exited without one of us dying. We’re even now, though.”

Race’s view faded to black after a brief snap of pain in his shoulder and neck, the kind that told him he’d just been fatally wounded. When his vision started working again, he was standing in front of the main boards of Chessick arena, Lupi Land gone and Spot nowhere to be found.

Now that he knew Spot was really Nimhe, he could actually read about him.

Most people agreed Nimhe was probably the one who created the Iocane program, especially since his name meant “poison.” He was well known for how fast he could program and how flawless his programs were, leading some people to accuse him of being an AI. He hadn’t disproved the rumors, but Tony was pretty confident that no AI, no matter how advanced, could be as much of a complete asshole as Spot was.

He wasn’t seen often, but when he was, he left his mark.

Nimhe was as much of a legend as Racetrack dei Lupi was.

Tony let his research into Spot and Nimhe overlap from his screen time into his regular life. It wasn’t like his regular life was so enthralling, anyway. He was just the short, awkward foster kid, floating from home to home, no close friends in school and no real life outside of the Net.

He wasn’t alone in that, of course. Most people spent more time pretending to be somebody else in OmniNet than they did being themselves in the real, physical world. He was the only person he knew in real life who was at a level as high as Race was, though nobody really knew he, Tony, was Race, but he’d run into plenty of alter egos of people he really did know.

On the Net, both Spot and Nimhe seemed to have disappeared. There were no more random couch visits, no mysterious random deaths. Until he got a message, from Spot’s IP address, at one in the morning.

_lupi land open for business, no death required, seven pm eastern sundays, coming soon to the chessick near you_

So at seven pm the next Sunday, Race joined the server, using the same passcode he had the first time.

“Nice to see you, wolfy.” Spot was hanging upside down from a tree branch.

“Is upside down your normal state of being?”

“I’m gay. It’s my life’s purpose to be as inconvenient as possible. Being upside down annoys all you straighties.”

“All _us_ straighties? You think I’m straight?”

“Well you’re resisting my many charms, you must be.”

“You’re not as hot as you think you are.”

“Oh, I’m not, this is what I actually look like. But Nimhe? He’s hot. I designed him that way.” Spot’s avatar flickered into Nimhe. He was the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. “Strong jaw, good hair, nice eyes, great fashion sense. The ultimate man.” The Nimhe avatar faded back into Spot, still upside down and grinning. “Hot. I’d date him.”

“You’d date yourself.” Race said flatly.

“No. Nimhe isn’t me, he’s a character. This-” He gestured to himself. “This is all me. Hot, but I wouldn’t date myself.” Race looked Spot up and down, or down and up, not quite believing it was really what he looked like.

One of the appeals of OmniNet was that you could design yourself to look exactly how you wanted. Race shared a face with Tony, only taller, more defined, more traditionally handsome. His hair was tamed, not wild curls, he didn’t somehow look both gangly and tiny at the same time.

The Spot Conlon avatar was short, but his hair was perfect and his jawline was perfect. The white spots dotted on his skin were placed too perfectly to not be fake. Along the bottoms of his eyes, giving him inverted racoon eyes, giving him a perpetual white smirk at the corner of his mouth, tracing his jawline up to his ear from his chin, a perfect streak of white hair that continued all the way into his puff, sticking out from under his collar. Everything about him was just a little bit _off_ , a little bit _too_ perfect to be real.

“I know, right? I’m pretty fucking hot.” Spot flipped himself down, landing facing Race on equal footing. “Short, but hot. What about you? Race is too perfect to be the real you.”

“Spot is too perfect to be the real you.”

“No, you just haven't seen enough of me to know. This is me. Short, angry.” Spot’s eyes narrowed, then he grinned again. “That’s what you are, too. Short, gay, and angry. Kindred spirits.”

“I’m not short!”

“Your avatar is exactly two inches taller than the average height. Five foot, eleven and a half inches. I’ll the code for that is to update your height every time the average changes, so you’re always just a little bit taller than most people. That positively screams “I’m short and insecure about it.” You just gotta embrace it. Being short is a way of life.”

“You’re a total asshole, you know that?”

“I’m trying my best.” Spot whistled loudly, summoning his wolf to him again. Race stepped back.

“Relax. He won’t do anything unless I tell him to, and I’m not trying to kill you right now.”

“So why am I here?”

“Cause it’s fun to make you mad.” Race pulled up a firewall he’d made in advance when he saw code in Spot’s eyes. “And I’m not trying to hit you with anything, either, you don’t need that firewall.” A second wolf rendered in front of them. “A gift.”

Race skimmed the wolf’s code, making sure there weren’t any viruses hidden inside.

“Why do you keep giving me weird gifts?”

“Flowers aren’t a weird gift. A wolf is, but flowers aren’t. And I told you. I’m being flirty and friendly.” Spot disappeared, and Race got a message that he’d left the server.

The next Sunday, pretty much the same thing happened. Race showed up, Spot was already there, he did his best to get on Race’s nerves, he left after a few minutes of making fun of him.

Almost every week, Spot was there before Race. A couple of time, Race got there first, twice, he didn’t end up showing up during the time Race waited.

He got less irritating over time, mostly just because Race was getting to know him. He just had a weird sense of humor.

“Where were you last week?”

“Enjoying the real world. I forgot it was Sunday.” Spot’s wolf had changed sizes, small enough to be sitting in his lap, and he was eating something. “Unlike some people, I prefer the real world most of the time.” Race scoffed.

“Like you got this good by only playing once in a while.”

“I played for hours a day at first. Then I realized it wasn’t worth it. There’s more to do in the real world, if you know where to look. And it’s more fun, since you actually have to be careful. There’s no revival in real life. And the city is cool. Lots of stuff to see. You never go out and explore?”

“There’s nothing to see. It’s just a city.”

“There’s always stuff to see.”

“It’s an old, dirty city. It’s much better in here.”

“The old dirty kind are the best. Last week I climbed the bridge. Sat up on top and could see across both rivers. All the old skyscrapers and the newer ones on the outside. People so small they looked like bugs, and nobody knew I was up there.”

Race recognized that description.

“You’re from New York!”

“Brooklyn. Yeah. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Accents don’t come through, if that’s what you mean.”

“I can hear yours. You’re from here too. Do you have a filter on?” Race frowned, pulling up his menu.

“Translation, yeah, there’s no accent filter.”

“Try selecting it.”

“Oh.” Race turned off the accent filter.

“See? Accents come through.” Now Race could hear that Spot had an almost comically thick Brooklyn accent.

“There’s no way that’s real.”

“You just think everything about me is fake, huh, wolfy? My face, my voice, what about me do you believe?”

“You're smart.”

“That’s it, huh?” Spot patted the wolf and he grew back to his normal height. “Meet me in person some time, you’ll see.”

“Yeah, cause meeting a person in real life from the net has proven time and again to be the best idea possible.”

News boards almost always had a headline about people who’d thought they’d fallen in love online meeting their supposed soulmates in person, only to end up going missing and never being found.

Of course, there were just as many success stories coming from online relationships, but those weren’t as widely spread. Fear was easier to get across than happiness for others finding love.

Not that they’d be meeting for a date. Or at all, not that they’d be meeting at all, what was he thinking?

“You already know me.” Spot looked mildly disappointed that Race was turning him down. “What other nights are you free? Besides Sundays?”

“I dunno. Depends. Most of them, really.”

“I’m at the bridge every Wednesday. If you ever change your mind.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to meet you in person?”

“No, I mean why are you at the bridge every Wednesday? And which bridge? There’s like a million in this city.”

“The Brooklyn Bridge, dumbass, what other bridge would I be talking about?”

“Any of the other million bridges in the city!”

“There’s only a couple worth anything and mine is one. And I go because it’s beautiful.” For a split second, Race saw Spot’s act fall apart. He stopped trying to be a mysterious asshole and was genuinely sincere about finding the city beautiful. “Come some time. I’ll show you.”

“Maybe.” Race said doubtfully.

“I’m there every Wednesday. Walk it, you’ll find me.” With that, Spot grinned and disappeared, leaving the server.

Tony wanted to go to the bridge. He wanted to meet Spot in person, to see if he really was who he said he was.

But what he would do if he wasn't?

Die in real, actual life, probably. Not be able to revive and wake up somewhere. Killed by some random person who’d convinced him he was really who he said he was online.

It took several weeks for him to make up his mind. He was gonna go to the bridge, just to see if he could find Spot. If he couldn’t find a person who looked like the avatar, he’d leave, and call Spot on his lie.

He didn’t tell Spot he was going, either. Just in case.

It was easy to sneak out of the foster home. Nobody paid much attention to him, since he usually shut himself in his room as soon as he was home from school and didn’t come out until the next morning, so climbing out the window and down the fire escape was easy and he wasn’t worried about them noticing he was gone.

It cost him almost a few dollars of lunch money to get down to the Brooklyn bridge, and it was a much longer walk than he’d expected.

He also hadn’t _really_ expected to see Spot, standing in the middle of the bridge, on the edge people weren’t supposed be, leaning out over the water.

“Spot!” He started, turning around.

“Race?” He looked almost exactly like his avatar, spots and perfect hair and all. Everything was slightly less symmetrical, the spot under his left eyes stretched down further than the right one, the one on his chin wasn’t as weirdly straight as it had been online, and the white streak in his hair was more oddly shaped, but he was clearly and instantly recognizable as the boy Race had been friends with for months online.

“Yeah. Tony, really.” Spot hopped down from the raised concrete he was standing on.

“I knew you were short.” He grinned. “Almost as short as me.”

“You make yourself taller, too.” Tony accused.

“Only a little.”

Neither of them said anything for a minute, just looked each other up and down.

“Don’t you see how pretty it is here?” He turned back to the edge of the bridge. “Look at that.”

“They have views like that in the Net.”

“Not like this. Focus on the building over there. The tall one, with the green top.” Spot pulled Race up next to him and pointed. “If you try, you can see the details on the building. There’s old carvings, gargoyles and stuff. Next time you’re online, you can see the same building from this bridge, only none of the detail comes through.” Spot pointed out other things he’d noticed, like the way the water didn’t flow in a simple current, or how the light changed the way the city looked while the sun set. By the time Race had to go, Spot had convinced him that there were things in real life OmniNet couldn’t convey.

They didn’t meet in real life often. Race didn’t want to get caught, and anyway, it was easier to meet online and talk when it involved far less walking and coordination. Lupi Land evolved rapidly from a simple forest server as both of them added things.

Race changed the gray ceiling into a simulation of the stars, Spot added more animals, Race added a river that they could swim in, Spot added a building where they could hang out when they didn’t feel like being outside.

It was easy to tell now that Spot wasn’t actually an asshole. He did his best to act like one, never missing an opportunity to take a jab at Race’s perfect avatar or something stupid he did, but it was just his sense of humor.

“What are you doing Friday night?”

“What?”

“What are you doing Friday night? I have something I want to show you.”

“In here?”

“No. Real life.” Spot was on the couch across from Race in the house he’d built in their server, his feet up on the wall and his head hanging down, like he had been the second time he’d broken into Race’s house. 

He was seemingly incapable of sitting in a normal position.

“What is it?”

“A surprise. Outside the city. You’ll like it, if you can come.”

“Outside the city? Won’t that take all night?”

“Sure. It’s worth it, though.”

“Another beautiful sight?”

“Better than the city.”

“I can try. I’ll have to sneak out.”

“If you don’t want to, I’ll go again another time.”

“I want to. I’ll be there.”

“I haven’t told you where to meet me yet.” Spot smirked.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

“You know that massive rock in Central Park?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be there at four.” He waved and disappeared.

Tony’s foster family really did just ignore him most of the time. Friday after school it was even easier to sneak out than at night, since they weren’t even home yet when he left, and all he had to do was shut the door to his room with OmniNet running on the speakers, and he was free to go.

Spot was waiting by the big rock, sitting on top, looking around.

“Hey! Where are we going?”

“Out!” Spot popped up and slid down the rock. “I have a car. Let’s go.”

Spot’s car was an old, beat up blue thing. So old Tony couldn't quite tell what brand it was. It rattled when Spot started it, and felt almost like it was going to fall apart as they went. The radio was staticy and jumped from station to station when they went over bumps, and Tony’s window was stuck down.

By the time they got out of the city, he and Spot had settled into an easy conversation, but Spot still refused to tell him where they were going.

It was a long drive. They’d left at a little after four, and stopped to eat and go to the bathroom around seven, and then got back in the little blue car and kept driving.

They stopped for good on top of a mountain, in front of a weirdly shaped little building.

“It’s a perfect night.”

“For what?”

“You'll see.” Spot smiled and turned the car off.

The door to the building wasn’t locked, and Tony would have bet a solid kick could have knocked it in. Spot opened it gently, though, pushing it just far enough open to let them slip through.

Inside was clearly the kind of building that was sleek and modern when it was built, but had been allowed to decay after being abandoned. He had no idea what it had been for, any posters on the walls had long since faded beyond being readable, and while he could see slightly less faded areas where permanent things had been, they’d been long gone. There was no context to the room they were in at all.

Spot grabbed his hand, pulling him through a door and hitting a switch right past the door.

“Go sit down there. I’ll be there in a second. Close your eyes!”

“How am I supposed to walk down there with my eyes close?” Tony could tell Spot was rolling his eyes, even in the dark.

“Close them after you sit down, dumbass.”

Tony sat down on a dusty, though comfortable chair he’d walked right in to.

“On the floor, the floor, god those chairs are disgusting, you’re going to get a disease!”

“The floor isn’t any better!”

“I’ve cleaned the floor at least! It’s clean!” Tony slid off his chair and onto the floor. “Just stay where you are, close your eyes, I’ll show you where to sit when I get down.”

Tony closed his eyes, and a few seconds saw the room light up. He kept them closed until he felt Spot cover them with his own hands and pull him up.

“If you wanted me to sit in a specific place, you should have pointed it out.”

“You couldn’t see anyway. Lie down.” Spot pushed him back, still covering his eyes, and Tony felt blankets or something like that underneath them. “Now you can open.” 

Tony opened his eyes and blinked in the sudden light, confused. He was lying down, obviously, looking up, and it looked like the ceiling had opened up and he could see the night sky, but much clearer than any view of the night sky he’d ever had in real life.

“It’s a planetarium.” Spot whispered. “An old one, from before the VR ones got popular. I found it, and fixed the projector. They took the telescope with them when they left, but left all the low tech stuff.”

“It’s so pretty.” At first he thought he was seeing things, but the more he looked, the more sure he was that the images above them were moving.

“The audio doesn’t work.”

“Audio?”

“The program has a whole script.”

“You know it?” Spot shifted, and Tony realized he hadn’t been looking up at the ceiling.

“Some of it.”

“Say it.”

Spot started narrating what was happening, making it immediately obvious to Tony that he was more than just familiar with the script. He’d memorized it, and clearly done it out loud before, too. He pointed out constellations, pointing up and scooting closer to Tony to show him what he was talking about.

After at least five minutes, he stopped, like he’d gotten self-conscious.

“Keep going. There’s more, isn’t there?” Spot didn’t say anything. “I like listening to you talk.”

“Trade you.”

“What?”

“I tell you more about the stars if you answer my questions about you.”

“That’s not a fair trade.”

“Why not?”

“I get to ask you questions about you, too.” Spot was silent for a moment again, before agreeing.

“I get to go first.” He said. “Since I already talked.”

“Okay.”

“Are you straight? For real, I know we've joked about it.”

“God no. My turn. Tell me more about the stars.”

Spot gave a few more facts, now about the planet the ceiling had zoomed in on and how far away it was, how they’d thought at the time the script was written it was a good place to look for alien life but when they’d gotten there, they’d found nothing.

“Why do you spend so much time online?” Tony had to think for a minute to be able to put his answer into words.

“It’s an escape. I don’t have many friends. I’ve been in foster care since I was twelve, OmniNet went online the next year, and it was an easy way to be who I wanted to be instead of who I was. I don’t have friends, really, in real life. Except you, I guess, but that just happened. Online, I can look how I want and act how I want, and nobody can stop me, and people actually like me there.” Tony halfway expected Spot to crack a joke, but instead he squeezed Tony’s hand. “And I’m good at things in there. Programming I can do. Sports and stuff in real life I can’t. I just feel better about myself in there than I do out here.”

“I like you better out here, you know.” Spot said. “Everyone in there is too perfect. It’s why I pretty much stopped playing as Nimhe. You’re real, and out here it’s obvious. Race is just a character.”

“Yeah, but he’s a cool character. Me if I was better.”

“You don’t need to be better. You’re short and dorky and funny, and in there the only one that comes out is funny.”

“Dorky.”

“You just encouraged a twenty minute lecture about the stars that used outdated data and snuck out of the city to come to an abandoned planetarium with me.”

“You didn’t tell me where we were going, you know.”

“Whatever. My point is I like Tony more than Race.”

“Thanks. I guess.” Spot didn’t let go of Tony’s hand. “Why did you make Nimhe, then?”

“I guess I wanted to know if it really was better in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I joined a couple months after it went online, and everyone was saying life was so much better, so much more fun in there. My life sucked, so I joined to see if it was any better for me in there. It only was because I could hack. I could make my own money and glitch through levels, and that’s what I got famous for. You know what Nimhe means?”

“No.”

“It’s Gaelic. The old Irish language. It means poison, or the poisoned one, something like that. I started to use it because that’s what I was good at. Iocane was one of the last ones I made. I got good at hiding viruses that killed people later, that gave me points and they never saw it coming. And for a little while, I thought it really was better in there, until the Net was down in my building and I spent a week outside. Both places suck, but this one is real. In there, everyone kills everyone, and it’s normal. It’s just a game, but how many stories have you read about little kids not understanding they can’t just be revived and getting hurt or dying in the real world? So I stopped playing as much. I wanted to enjoy the real world.”

“But you hacked my house.”

“On accident, the first time.” Spot squeezed again, and when Tony looked over, he was smiling at the ceiling, which was zooming towards a moon now. “I was actually just looking for a secret server thing I used to be a part of, but the IPs were similar. And then you killed me, so I came back to get even, and you didn’t fall for Iocane, so I wanted to get to know you more.”

“And here we are.”

“Here we are.” Spot shifted onto his side, looking right at Tony. They were still close from Spot pointing things out on the ceiling, and when he rolled, they were so close their foreheads almost touched. “In the real world, and isn’t it better?”

“Yeah. I guess it is.”

And it was. Inside the Net, sensations were all dulled a little bit. You could feel it when something touched you, but it wasn’t quite right. Sometimes it was just a little off where you could see it touching you, sometimes the feeling just didn’t match what it should have felt like. Smells barely came through at all, and even when the sights were gorgeous, Spot was right, not everything came through.

Here and now, he could feel the warmth of Spot so close to him, holding his hand and looking into his eyes, and see the way the light from a billion projected stars made his spots seem to glow in the dark, and smell the damp, dusty mustiness of the old building around them, and feel his heart speed up in his chest. Everything was more real, in the real world, and it sounded like common sense when he said it like that, but he hadn’t said it like that in a long time.

“My turn.” Spot said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?” Tony nodded, and Spot pressed even closer, touching their foreheads together before kissing him.

And that was really the icing on the cake, wasn’t it? Everything was warm, Spot’s hand moved to his waist and he tangled his hand in Spot’s hair, which had come down from it’s perfect little puff at some point, and Tony squirmed even closer, so their chests were pressed together, and he was surrounded by so many different sensations he knew they never would have felt so good and right online.

Here and now, on top of a random mountain in an abandoned planetarium with the stars swirling above them, this was real and this was good and this was where he wanted to be. As Tony, the short, dorky, apparently funny foster kid who’d snuck out to be with a short, snarky, annoying, kind of asshole-ish guy who seemed too good to be true.

It was good and real, and enough he could ignore anything else.

Good and real and enough.

**Author's Note:**

> jgfkjlkdsf This was a shitpost when it started and it morphed into a sappy lil thing oop!
> 
> Please comment if you have anything whatsoever to tell me, I love y'all!
> 
> As always, feel free to come hang out on [ Tumblr](http://enby-crutchie.tumblr.com) with me, I love talking to people!


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